By Kate Chapman of NZPA

Wellington, April 28 NZPA - Up to 20 percent of New Zealand babies are not being immunised because they fall through the gaps between midwifery, general practitioner and post-natal care, politicians were told today.

Nelson Bays Primary Health immunisation facilitator Bobbie Hutton said there was a lack of engagement of immunisation discussion in ante-natal care.

Most parents decided whether to immunise their children before birth when they were "not tired and thinking about what their child is doing".

Midwives and ante-natal educators were told that immunisation was an after-birth activity and many did not want to discuss it for fear of being seen as pro or anti-immunisation, Ms Hutton told the health select committee's inquiry into how to improve completion rates of childhood immunisation.

There needed to be greater knowledge and professional development to enable midwives to engage in discussions about immunisation, she said.

The New Zealand Medical Association said when maternity care was provided solely by general practitioners there were many opportunities for doctors, and more importantly practice nurses, to have discussions with expectant parents.

There were now more opportunities for children to "slip through the gaps" in their first six weeks of life when their care moved between a midwife, doctor and Well Child providers.

Medical officer of health for Regional Public Health, part of Hutt Valley District Health Board, Stephen Parker, said National Immunisation Register administrators should be supported to find children who had slipped through the gaps.

With more staff and greater access to government agency databases, the administrators would be able to identify children who remained un-immunised.

He also said public education was important.

The Ministry of Health needed to promote what he called "herd immunity" which is based on the theory that as immunised people do not spread the diseases they are protected against they can help protect the community from the disease.

"If the proportion of the population immunised reaches a threshold level then it is possible to eliminate this infection from a population."

Dr Parker said parents should be made aware of this as an opportunity to start public debate on immunisation.